tebtosca | FIC: As Numb as I've Become (John Winchester gen, PG-13)

Title: As Numb as I've Become
Characters: John, Mary, Dean, Sam, Ellen, Alastair
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1451
Warnings: Spoilers through 8.12, John POV

Summary: We lose things and then we choose things

Author's Notes: I'm not exactly sure yet how I feel about the ~reboot~ so I've decided to work out my rather intense Winchester feelings like this lol. Summary comes from listening to too much Sondheim.

Beta by

fiercelynormal

Paul Kimball of Lawrence, Kansas has always been a good man, but John can’t bring himself to love him.

When John Winchester is ten, his mother bundles him up and takes him away from Normal. She has cousins in Lawrence, one of whom sets her up with a local boy named Paul. He’s a veteran of the Korean War, has his own mechanic shop, his own house, and his own hair.

When Paul pops the question, John’s mother says “yes,” and Mrs. Winchester is a Winchester no more.

John clings to his name because it’s all he has left of his father. John hates the man, but he cloaks himself in the identity that binds them, and never bothers to question why.

He doesn’t feel anything when he graduates from high school and Paul says, “I’m proud of you, son” with a solid pat on his shoulder. John doesn’t feel rage or hate or dismay. He just feels nothing.

He enlists the next day just to feel something again.

The name “Winchester” is a brand across the chest of his uniform when he kills for the first time.

**

It’s the sense of honor instilled in him as a Marine that leads John to the Roadhouse twelve hours after Bill dies. He owes it to Bill’s widow to explain what happened, to offer comfort if he can. Comfort he never got himself when Mary was taken from him.

Ellen sees the blood on John’s shirt, on his arms, and her face crumbles. Ellen’s a good woman, one of the best, and suddenly the words are stuck in his throat. He chokes them out the best he can.

“There was a demon in him. He begged me, El, begged me--”

She collapses against the bar, smooth like a puppet with its strings cut. He’s rushing to her before he even realizes he’s moving, holding her back against his chest in a way that he hasn’t held anyone but his sons since Mary died.

There’s a wild sound coming from her throat, an animal in a trap, inhuman and so human all at once.

“I’m so sorry,” he says and suddenly she’s scratching at him, clawing at his face until his own blood mingles with the blood of her husband. She balls her fists and keeps going, twisting in the grasp around her waist that he still holds.

She’s slamming her hands at anything she can reach, his face, his chest, his throat, the air. She spits right in his face, straight in his eyes, and it shocks him enough to distract him. She wiggles from his hold and runs back to the bar.

She has her shotgun out and aimed at him before he has time to wipe the saliva from his lids.

John blinks and then sees the girl. Little Joanna Beth, blonde hair in pigtails, hiding half behind the bar. Her face is both terrified and inquisitive, and John can’t help thinking about how much she reminds him of Dean.

Ellen cocks the shotgun and bares her teeth.

“You look at my child one more time, John Winchester, and I will kill you where you stand.”

He leaves without another word. Little Jo is going to grow up without a father now. He’s done enough.

John needs his boys, needs them so bad that it’s a physical ache in the space where his heart lives. He knows they’re safe with Jim, knows Dean’ll be looking out for his little brother as well, but John needs to hold them in his arms and feel their hearts beat against his skin.

It’s 338 miles to Jim’s house in Blue Earth. John just needs to keep driving, and he’ll get there.

Seventy-six miles down the road, John stops at a bar. He doesn’t leave until the bartender kicks him to the curb at last call.

It’s cold when he wakes up, arms empty.

**

Mary’s in her eighth month of pregnancy, and the skin of her stomach is stretched and smooth, little nub of her bellybutton popping out like a little flag of announcement.

John rubs his face against it, peppering it with kisses until she giggles and moans “John, c’mon, it tickles!” while pushing at his head. He steals one more kiss, then another, and laughs against the skin, so warm and alive.

“We gotta start thinking of a name soon,” Mary reminds him, running her hands through John’s hair as he rests his ear against her side to try and hear the phantom echo of their baby’s heartbeat.

Names are important, John knows. He steals one more kiss, but doesn’t reply.

“Maybe a family name?” Mary continues on, her voice a little more hesitant than usual. “He’s a boy, you know.”

John closes his eyes against her flesh. Their baby lies snug somewhere in there, safe.

“How about ‘Dean’? Your mama should be rewarded for making the best blueberry pie in Kansas.”

He can feel the vibrations of Mary’s laughter, and it makes him smile both inside and out.

“I like it,” she says. Her hands suddenly come up to her belly, cradling the swollen form with devotion. He sits back until he can mimic her movements, and they look at each other.

“Hello there, Dean,” John says, and Mary’s face is the sun.

John leans down to talk right to their baby, and suddenly he doesn’t know how a man is supposed to survive a love like this. There’s a brief flash of anger that his own father could throw that kind of love away so easily.

But John pushes the anger down deep, and whispers a promise to his son.

“I’m gonna do right by you, buddy.”

**

John can’t remember the last time he heard his boy crying, but the choking sobs coming from the bed farthest from the motel door are unmistakable even through the haze of liquor clouding John’s vision.

It’s a knife through his gut, mournful and obscene, and John wants to turn around and flee back out the door. Get in the car and drive and hide and run-run-run until he can’t hear the sounds echo in his head ever again.

But he doesn’t. John walks over to the bed, where Dean is curled up like a fetus.

Unfocused anger licks hot and sharp at John’s insides, burning brighter than the cheap whiskey in his gullet. It’s in his palm as he reaches out and raps against the side of Dean’s head.

Dean looks up at him in shock, flinching back from John’s hand before involuntarily pressing his face back against it. It surprises John, the way Dean is seeking comfort without even seeming to know it. John curves his palm around Dean’s damp chin.

“Dad,” Dean croaks, lashes shiny and wet. “Sammy…you didn’t mean what you said, right? He’ll come back.”

John squeezes Dean’s chin and feels the trembling under the skin.

“A man doesn’t abandon his family, Dean.”

“But, Dad—“ Dean’s voice cracks and John’s fingers are suddenly wetter.

People don’t cry in their world. Life is coal-black and hard and the ability to get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other is the thing that one clings to in order to survive.

But his firstborn, Mary’s firstborn, stares at him and John thinks maybe that’s not all true. Maybe there is more, maybe there has to be.

They have each other. They have a mission. John’s not alone.

John presses his forehead to Dean’s, faces so close that Dean can surely smell the booze on his breath.

“You and me now, buddy. Just you and me.”

“Yeah, Dad, yeah.” Dean shudders a breath, in and out.

John breathes with him until he calms.

**

John doesn’t know what he expected of Hell. If the concept of laughter still existed for him, he might chuckle at the thought of cartoon villains with red horns and a goatee, or lakes of melted Crayola fire.

The demon who tortures him introduces himself as Alastair, because names are important.

John says “no” every time, not because he’s strong, but because it’s pointed out to him how very badly he has failed.

“How noble of you, John,” the demon named Alastair hisses at him. “Leaving your boys all alone in the world.”

John says “no” because he deserves the pain.

**

The most important moment of John Winchester’s life is when Mary tells him that she’s pregnant for a second time, because it means his boy is not going to grow up alone.

His children will always have each other. It’s a comfort John didn’t even realize he needed until the words were out of her mouth.

John kisses his wife and feels everything.